5 Tips for Training for an Adventure Trek

Allison Wallace recently appeared on CTV with Mandy Gills of MGM Fitness to talk about Flight Centre’s upcoming ‘Wish Trek’ in Iceland, and to share her 5 tips for training for an adventure trek.

Allison and a team of 26 other Flight Centre employees, along with the President & CEO of Make A Wish Canada, will depart on August 4, 2015 for Iceland. They’ll trek an average of 26 km/day to raise $60,000 for Make A Wish Canada. In preparation for this charity trek, Flight Centre recruited Mandy Gill of MGM Fitness to act as the team’s Personal Fitness Consultant. While starting to train nearly 8 months prior to departure may sound eager, Mandy strongly advises that starting your fitness plan far in advance will leave you best prepared for this kind of a physical challenge. Here are 5 training tips she shared on CTV’s morning news segment on Monday, January 19th:

1. Start with the Basics

Increase your physical fitness by focusing on your cardiovascular endurance with regular exercise. You probably know you can’t just jump into an intense workout routine and expect to feel fine, but you can work up to it. The only way to do this is by being consistent with your workouts, and by starting to build that stamina far enough in advance of when you actually need to be at that level of fitness.

2. Follow a Routine

Follow a recommended weekly routine of 30 minutes a day, 4-5 days per week. There’s a common misconception that a person needs to commit hours upon hours at the gym to see real results. When your focus is simply a good level of health and fitness, that’s just not true. You’ll only need to commit 30 minutes out of the 1,440 that are in a day (960 if you allot for 8 hours of sleep).

3. Train in your Gear

The worst thing you can do is show up on the first day of the trek with a brand new pair of hiking boots that will leave you with blisters and a painful experience. Wear your boots while working out to break them in and to adjust to the weight and feel of them. You’ll also want to use any gear you plan to carry to exercise the muscle groups you’ll be using while trekking. You’ll likely be hiking or walking with a backpack, so determine early how much you’ll be carrying and fill the backpack to reach this weight, and use it for exercises that require the type of movement that your upcoming trek does (Mandy and Allison demonstrate in the video link we’ve provided).

4. Keep a Journal

To be sure you are staying on top of your workouts, log them in a journal (digital or notepad). This will help you track your improvement and encourage you to keep going!

About the Author

Emma Hackwood a freelance copywriter, amateur glider pilot and full-time adventure seeker, has travelled extensively in pursuit of her lifelong dream of simply seeing it all. Up to over 50 countries, she lists American Samoa and the seldom visited Marquesas Islands as her current favourite destinations, with a wandering eye on Guam and Tonga to complete her Pacific escapades.